Well, ’twas a sacred sort of time. The town folks tiptoed away, the men lookin’ solemn but glad, and the women swabbin’ their deadlights and sayin’ how affectin’ ’twas, and so on. Oh, you could see that show would do bus’ness _that_ night, if it never did afore. The manager got after Jonadab and me later on, and did his best to pump us, but he didn’t find out much. He told us that Montague b’longed to the Uncle Tom’s Cabin Company, and that he’d disappeared a fortni’t or so afore, when they were playin’ at Hyannis. Eva was his wife, and the child was their little boy. The bloodhounds knew him, and that’s why they chased him so. “What was you two yellin’ ‘Stop thief!’ after him for?” says he. “Has he stole anything?” We says: “No.” “Then what did you want to get him for?” he says. “We didn’t,” says Jonadab. “We wanted to git rid of him. We don’t want to see him no more.” You could tell that the manager was puzzled, but he laffed. “All right,” says he. “If I know anything about Maggie--that’s Mrs. Schmults--he won’t git loose ag’in.” We only saw Montague to talk to but once that day. Then he peeked out from under the winder shade at the hotel and asked us if we’d told anybody where’d he been. When he found we hadn’t, he was thankful. “You tell Petey,” says he, “that he’s won the whole pot, kitty and all. I don’t think I’ll visit him again, nor Belle, neither.” “I wouldn’t,” says I. “They might write to Maudina that you was a married man. And old Stumpton’s been prayin’ for somethin’ alive to shoot at,” I says. The manager give Jonadab and me a couple of tickets, and we went to the show that night. And when we saw Booth Hank Montague paradin’ about the stage and defyin’ the slave hunters, and tellin’ ’em he was a free man, standin’ on the Lord’s free soil, and so on, we realized ’twould have been a crime to let him do anything else. “As an imitation poet,” says Jonadab, “he was a kind of mildewed article, but as a play actor--well, there may be some that can beat him, but _I_ never see ’em!” [Illustration] AS IT ENDED God planned me for a butterfly, But I was marred i’ the making; What is it that old Omar says Of the Potter’s hand a-shaking? Ah, no, not that, the colors ran, The form turned out awry, And so I’m what they call a man Who’d be a butterfly. FARRINGDON DAVIS. _The TEARS of UNDINE_ By Edith Macvane [Illustration] In the morning young Glyn lost his steamer, so he was forced to spend the whole day at Pemaquid; in the afternoon he lost his heart, so he was forced to stay there for his entire vacation. This is the way it happened.